Duke Basketball Recruiting Roundup: December 2nd Edition

Thanks for checking out the latest edition of the Duke basketball recruiting roundup. The Blue Devils have built some great momentum with class of 2017 with the recent commitments of Gary Trent and Wendell Carter, and are quickly rising in the recruiting rankings.

The program still has its eye on a point guard for next season’s incoming freshman class, as well as a couple other major 5-star prospects, namely Kevin Knox and Mohamed Bamba.

Here are the top headlines from the past week as it relates to Duke recruiting.

The athletic department published an official release this week that confirmed the commitments of Wendell Carter, Gary Trent, and Alex O’Connell, who all participated in the early signing period. Carter is one of the most highly regarded frontcourt players in the 2017 class, while Trent is regarded as one of the best scorers, and O’Connell is versatile guard who continues to grow and develop. With the three commitments, Duke has now moved up to the No. 6 spot in the 247Sports Composite Team Rankings for 2017.

Duke associate head coach Jeff Capel took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to watch Trevon Duval, the top ranked point guard in the class of 2017. Capel and the Blue Devils extended an offer to the 6’3”, 190-pound hyper-athletic guard who plays for IMG Academy in Florida, and he would be the immediate answer to Duke’s point guard questions for next year’s recruiting class. Duval is considered to be a potential one-and-done talent who could take over the starting point guard responsibilities or play alongside Frank Jackson.

2017 5-star small forward Kevin Knox has a new blog post on USA Today Sports about how he’s preparing for his senior season at Tampa Catholic in Tampa, Fl. The 6’8”, 200-pound forward is the No. 2 small forward and No. 9 overall player in the 247Sports Composite, and he mentions in his post that he has official visits scheduled for Florida State and Kentucky in January, as well as North Carolina in February. Knox took an official visit to Duke a few weeks ago and the Blue Devils are viewed as the favorite to land him.

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The holidays have been a relatively quiet period for recruiting. We’ll see if things pick up in the coming weeks!